


things we left behind

by infinitebees



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, young king alistair au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-05-15 20:42:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5799259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitebees/pseuds/infinitebees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an au where adaia tabris and her daughter worked in redcliffe castle for a time, and young tabris and alistair are childhood friends; cailan dies when alistair is 17, and he is taken out of templar training to replace his late brother.</p>
<p>in which tabris realizes that home can be a person, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. an arrival, and a reunion

**Author's Note:**

> this was an au that aliencereal thought up that i tried my hand at writing 0; relatively new to the dragon age fandom, and not new to fic but suffice it to say it's been a while so bear with me here, mayhaps. hmu on tumblr @pentagays

i.  
The journey to Ostagar from Denerim is a two-week long ordeal, and a largely silent one. Duncan had given up on trying to make conversation with Tabris when all his questions were met with the shortest answers she could supply, if not with cold silence. He picked up quickly on the fact that she was neither in the mood nor in a very good condition for talking, and now Duncan addresses her only to tell her where they’re going to set up camp for the night, or how much longer they have to travel. Tabris is surprised, and begrudgingly grateful: humans don’t usually bother to take her feelings into account. She takes this time to think, mostly – about what brought her here, and what comes next.  
She still dreams about her wedding day every night. Every night she runs through the corridors of the Denerim estate in her dress, blood dripping from the broadsword Soris had given her, except in her dreams she never finds Shianni and she runs and runs and she’s alone and always, always too late. Every night she wakes breathless, choking back a scream that’s been building ever since she left that estate. And every night, Duncan is awake when she bolts upright, sitting at the dying fire and pointedly not looking at her. Another small mercy.

(One day he tells her that he’s used to nightmares, too; that it’s part of being a Warden. Tabris grimly thinks she’ll fit right in.)

She knows she’s just traded one death sentence for another; Duncan didn’t sugarcoat what it means to be a Warden, and when he spoke of the honor of their duty it was with irony in his voice. This one feels kinder, though – at least she’ll die on the front lines instead of hanging from a rope. She doesn’t regret her choice, of course, not a single one of them: she knows they were all the right ones to make. Her life for that of the alienage seemed a fair bargain, or at least as fair as an elf was going to get. She’s learned that home is the most important thing a person can have, and she’s kept hers safe, even if it isn’t really hers anymore. It may never be, for Tabris doesn’t know much about the Wardens, but she has a feeling it isn’t the sort of job one can quit. The goodbyes she’d given to her father and cousins had felt permanent, and everyone had seemed to pick up on it.  
When they’re a day away from Ostagar, Duncan tells her that the king will be waiting for them when they arrive. There’s an edge to his tone when he mentions him, one that Tabris can’t quite interpret for all her cunning. Usually she’d have tried to figure things out, but she has a feeling it’s something she’s not going to get out of him. And anyway, Tabris is too occupied with her own thoughts to bother with Duncan’s.

The king, he’d said. _Alistair._

“What’s he like?” she asks, trying not to sound as urgent as she feels. “The king, that is. I mean you’ve met him, right?”

Duncan seems to catch the feeling she hides behind the words, but he has the good sense not to remark upon it. “I’ve only met him twice,” he says instead (and there’s still that strange color to his voice, some combination of worry and… fondness? Tabris shakes that thought away to examine later). “But he struck me as a good man. Certainly different from his brother; far less brash, more considerate of those over whom he’s ruling. Beyond that he’s rather… _difficult_ to describe.

“But I’m sure you were asking more about his strategy for the battle than about his character.” Duncan frowns at her; Tabris decides silence is the best lie for right now, and nods. “Unfortunately I can’t tell you that; most of the planning was done in my absence, so they’ll be briefing me as well as you and the other recruits once we get there. But I can tell you a little bit about what you can expect from the battle, from my own experience with darkspawn.”

And so he does. But Tabris has already tuned him out, wrapped in thoughts and ideas that she hasn’t considered in a long, long time.

ii.  
_“Tab.” Alistair’s whisper is urgent as he shakes her out of sleep, his brown eyes glittering in the dark of the room (“You’ve got eyes like mine,” she’d told him once. “You sure you’re just a shem?”), and Tabris props herself up on her elbows to look at him. “Tab, wake up.” It’s late; she doesn’t know what time exactly, but she knows it’s late enough that Alistair would get in a good deal of trouble were he to be caught in the servants’ quarters at this hour. The last time this had happened, Lady Isolde had made Alistair do all of Tabris’s chores with her for a month, saying that if he wanted to sneak around with the servants then he had ought to make himself useful like one. And yet here he is now, perched on the foot of her bed, heedless of the possible repercussions._

_“I gotta tell you something,” he says gravely. “It’s really important.” Tabris doesn’t say anything, just slips out of bed and lets him guide her outside as she wonders what it is Alistair has to say. Usually when he takes this sort of tone it means he’s in trouble for something._

_He takes her to the castle courtyard – their favorite place to play. The summer air is pleasantly cool on their faces, and Tabris catches the scent of rain on the wind. Tabris doesn’t like Redcliffe castle, with all its vast hallways and garishly-decorated rooms; it’s never felt like home to her. The courtyard doesn’t feel like part of the castle, though. It’s always quiet there and the air tastes sweeter and it feels like a different world entirely, separate from all their troubles and responsibilities. Often they spend hours there together, sitting beneath the tallest tree and eating the tart berries they’d picked off the bushes._

_Now, though, Alistair somberly sits her down beneath their tree and stares anxiously into her eyes. Tabris has a funny feeling in her chest, a sort of tightness that she doesn’t know what to do with so she sets it aside to think about later, when he’s gone and not thrumming in her head and hands. “Al, what’s wrong?”_

_“It’s –“ he starts to speak but his mouth doesn’t seem sure where his brain wants it to go. “You can’t tell anyone, okay? It’s gotta be a secret. A really, really big secret.”_

_“I swear I won’t tell a soul,” Tabris says. “I swear grandmother's grave. What is it, though? Why’re you bein’ so weird about it?” She's known something was the matter, of course; he’s been acting oddly for the past couple days; he gets distracted sometimes when they play, looking uncharacteristically melancholy, and at times he seeks her out just so that they can sit in silence. Tabris is still young, only ten years grown, but she has a gift for reading people and she was planning to ask him about it soon but here he was, about to do it for her. “Alistair,” she repeats, her voice firm, “what’s wrong?”_

_Alistair takes a deep breath and holds it a moment before letting it out in a sad sort of sigh. “Remember when Lady Isolde started yelling at uncle Eamon during dinner the other day? An’ everyone got sent away while they fought.” When Tabris nods, he continues: “Well after that uncle took me aside an’ sat me down in his study and he told me that… that this whole time he’s known who my father is and his name was Maric.”_

_Tabris lets that sink in a moment, and tries to remember her limited education about the monarchy. “Your brother is king Cailan?” She almost shouts, remembering only at the last minute to keep her voice low. “So then you’re like… a prince, then.”_

_“No! No, I’m just…” Alistair scowls. “I’m just Alistair. That’s all I wanna be. I only told you ‘cos I felt really badly keeping a secret from you, okay? But you can’t tell anyone, and you can’t treat me any different. D’you promise?”_

_“I promise,” Tabris says, without hesitation. “You’ll always be just Alistair to me. Wouldn’t want a snooty shem prince for a best friend anyway.”_

_She’s caught off guard when Alistair reaches out and pulls her close, tucking his chin on her shoulder. He’s strong for his age, and tall, and Tabris isn’t used to this sort of contact, even from Alistair; especially lately, now that Alistair’s touch has started to feel different somehow to her, leaving warmth on her skin and a feeling of embarrassment. Unsure of what to do, she pats his back until he finally pulls away and beams at her._

_“Tab, you’re better than anyone else in this stupid village. D’you know that?”_

_Tabris laughs. “Yeah,” she says. “I do.”_

_They sit in silence for a while, leaning on each other’s shoulders and listening to the crickets and the wind blowing through the leaves._

_“D’you know what we should do, since we’re up?” Tabris asks at last, a hint of mischief creeping into her voice. “We ought to take Isolde’s shoes and fill them up with marmalade. I’ll race you to the kitchen!”_

_Alistair’s surprised laughter brings that strange feeling back into her chest, and she holds it close to her the whole way back. (She lets him win.)_

_______________iii.  
She sees him standing at the gates with an exasperated-looking man and she wants it to feel as though nothing’s changed, as if they’re eleven again and chasing each other through Redcliffe castle with wooden swords, hiding from Isolde’s shrewd, disapproving gaze. But when she looks at him she’s _painfully_ aware that _everything_ has changed. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________Everything, perhaps, except for the joy that used to brighten his eyes whenever he saw her._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________Alistair breaks into a run to meet them before they’ve even made it to the gates, and Tabris knows the exact moment he recognizes her because that’s when that familiar light comes over his eyes and he smiles that smile that used to make her have to look away, as from the afternoon sun. She still feels its warmth, but now she does not look away. He’s a king now and she’s a murderer, a runaway._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________“Tab?” he questions quietly once he’s close enough to be heard, as if unsure whether or not he’s dreaming. “Is that really you?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________And for a moment Tabris can’t find her voice because the setting sun is glinting off his armor and he’s beautiful and she doesn’t know if she wants to crush his mouth to hers or run him through with her sword for leaving, for letting himself become anything else but Just Alistair. But without meaning to she smiles at him and she barely manages to whisper “Of course” before Alistair has pulled her into a tight hug._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________When he pulls away he’s positively _beaming_ and Tabris wants to laugh because of _course_ it would happen like this, of course they’d be thrown together again just before she’s about to go off and die (because she doesn’t expect to survive this; sure, she killed her way out of a fortified estate but this – this is monsters and war and all the things that cautionary tales are made of. And what was it Duncan had told her one night as the embers of the dying fire flickered in the night air? “In death, sacrifice.” No, Tabris doesn’t expect to live past the coming battle). And of course he would already be far, far out of her reach._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________“Maker, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again!” he says, still holding her to him. His hands are warm._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________“I didn’t expect to either. It’s good to see you’ve moved up in life.” And she’s surprised to find that it only comes out slightly bitter._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________They get maybe another few moments of this, of taking each other in, sizing each other up (Alistair has grown; he’s now several heads taller than her, and Tabris wonders if the rest of him has changed as well. What has a crown and a title done to the messy-haired boy she knew for so many years? She’s afraid to find out, afraid to have lost him to the nobles who sneer at her and call her “rabbit,” but she has to know) before they’re approached by the man who’s been waiting all this time at the gates. He’s tall, especially for someone as old as him, and his hair is long and well-kept, his eyes and the hollowness of his face the only things betraying the exhaustion he must be feeling._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________“Your Majesty,” he says, “you really shouldn’t be… _fraternizing_ with elves. People will think you’ve forgotten your place as king.” He slides his discerning gaze to Tabris, who stares defiantly back. When she glances over at Alistair she’s surprised to see that he has the same expression. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________“She’s not just an elf anymore, Loghain. She’s a Grey Warden.” He smiles down at her. “And an old friend. But I suppose we’ve done enough fraternizing for now, right Tab? There’ll be plenty of time once we’re finished here.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________“You seem confident,” Tabris notes. That earns her a nervous laugh from Alistair._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________“Hardly. Duncan says this could be the start of another Blight. I pray that he’s wrong, but if I’m to believe what they say about him is true, he’s probably not. Which means we have a lot of preparing to do, so…” He trails off with an awkward cough and glances at Duncan. “I suppose we ought to go about preparing for it. I understand there’s some sort of, er, ritual you’ve got to perform before you’re a proper Warden, yeah?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________This is news to Tabris._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________“We will talk to you once everything is over with, before the battle,” Duncan says quickly, shepherding a very confused Tabris away before she can question what this ritual is all about._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________iv.  
She’d expected to have to drink the blood (“What do you _think_ we’re going to do with three vials of darkspawn blood?” she’d snapped at Daveth when he’d wondered what this was all about); what she _hadn’t_ expected was how badly it would burn, how she’d pass out for a full ten minutes and wake to find the other two dead. And for hours afterwards Tabris feels ill, haunted by the burning red eyes that had met hers just before she’d slipped back into consciousness. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________She listens in silence as Duncan regales her with all the grim, gory details of being a Warden. How the nightmares are only going to get worse. How no matter how much she eats, she’ll practically always be hungry. How she’ll sense the darkspawn because now they’re her kin, and she’ll be able to sense the Wardens for the same reason. About how if she doesn’t die in battle, she’ll die no more than thirty years from now when her blood takes her to Orzammar._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________Tabris thinks of the battle to come and makes herself a promise; her heart beats slow and constant in her chest and she tells herself, _I’ve spent my life surviving. I survived this, just now._ She tells herself, _I won’t let that change here._ She has thirty years, because she won’t die at Ostagar. Thirty years to figure out how to live. She’ll cross that bridge later._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________When she sees Alistair again the sun set long ago and the night is cold, and he gives her a flicker of a smile before turning back to the man from earlier – Teryn Loghain, she’s told, reluctant advisor to the king (reluctant because this is the king that took the throne from his daughter; because a bastard is sitting where Anora should be, calling in the very country Loghain had almost died to repel) – to refute something he’s said; Tabris is too far away to hear just what._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________When everyone else has taken their stations but her and Duncan he tells her, “We’re going to need you in the tower of Ishal, lighting the beacon so that Loghain’s men know when to charge.” Tabris can see it in the way his eyes go soft – this isn’t about strategy, it’s about her, and she feels indignation struggling with relief._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________“I don’t need any special treatment, _Your Majesty,_ ” she says between gritted teeth, but Duncan sets a heavy hand on her shoulder._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________“It’s an important job, Tabris. You’ll be of more use to everyone there than in battle; you’re still inexperienced after all.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________And then that’s it, there’s no room for argument because she’s the one at a disadvantage here, the one who’s here only because a shem thought she could be useful. It’s done and over with; they all take their stations; So it is that Tabris finds herself walking alone to the tower in armor that’s a little too big for her while in the distance she can hear the fighting start._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________It takes exactly ten minutes for everything to go to shit._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


	2. and something's gotta change

i.

_It takes Tabris a month of actually, properly working in Redcliffe castle to meet its young master. She’s still getting lost in the vast corridors even now, despite her mother having taken her through it dozens of times by now, and she always feels lonely walking through them. Tabris misses the alienage in Denerim; for all its unpleasantness and squalor she had at least been relatively free there. Now she hardly leaves the castle, except for when Adaia takes her along to market, and it feels like all she does is work. At least when it comes to changing sheets she can just pop from room to room and know whether or not she’s been there by whether or not the bed is bare._

_She’s about to take a step through a large wooden door – she’s no idea what room this is, really, but, well, she’ll find out now – when she hears crying from the other side, and she stops short for a moment before quietly creeping in. And there’s a boy sitting in the far corner that can’t be much older than her, curled up, shoulders shaking with the effort of keeping his crying silent. Tabris considers leaving him – it’s just a shem, she realizes quickly, and she’s been told time and again that it’s best just not to bother them – but he looks so terribly pitiful making himself so small and against her better senses, she feels badly for him._

_“Hey,” she says, walking over to nudge him with her shoe. “What’re you doin’ here like that?”_

_The boy looks up at him, eyes red and swollen from crying. “They said I was a mistake,” he says hoarsely. “I heard them talkin’ about it in the kitchen, the servants, I mean. I dunno what they meant.”_

_Tabris wrinkles her nose. “That’s dumb. People can’t be mistakes, that doesn’t make any sense.” Then recognition dawns on her and she says, “Wait, you’re Alistair, en’t you?” Alistair nods and sniffles. “I’m Veriel.”_

_Alistair tries, in vain, to pronounce “Veriel” but falls flat, and Tabris laughs. “You can just call me Tabris, then. An’ hey, who were the servants who called you that? Let’s put spiders down their shirts.”_

_He smiles, brown eyes shining with sudden, surprised delight, and Tabris wants nothing more than to be the reason for that smile for as many times as she can._

 

ii.

There’s a song in her blood and it feels older than time itself, and she can swear she can almost understand the words but it sounds far away, like she’s underwater. And everything burns, and everything is dark except for those red, red eyes. Tabris knows what it is, the immense dragon that watches her with a gaze so intense she’s frozen to the spot. She feels rather than sees it take off, the beating of its broad wings an echo in the surrounding emptiness and she thinks she hears it _speak_ and – and then she’s wide awake in a bed that isn’t hers, and it feels like taking the first breath after drowning.

“So you are finally awake,” says a voice, soft and low. The words feel to Tabris like a cat settling on the bed. She’s standing at the foot of the bed and Tabris blearily recognizes her as the woman from before, the one she’d met in the Wilds with Daveth and Jory. Morrigan, was how she’d introduced herself. “I wondered how long it would take you.”

“Morrigan?” Tabris feels dizzy and her voice sounds small. “What happened?” She can remember things having gone a bit pear-shaped – the darkspawn had taken the tower and there was an ogre at the top and she’d just managed to light the beacon when the doors had broken down and then she was falling, falling, falling (or flying? All Tabris knows is that it she’d felt as though she had no body, and was traveling freely through darkness). “The battle – did we…?”

“Everyone is dead. Well, mostly everyone. That man – Loghain, was it? – he withdrew his men before any of them so much as saw a darkspawn.” She gives a derisive snort. “And you lot call yourselves the civilized world!” Tabris feels herself go cold; Morrigan seems to take delight in her horror.

Tabris’s mouth forms the question, “And the king?” only no sound will come out. Morrigan understands anyway.

“There is no king,” she shrugs. “There is, however, a man waiting outside waiting for you to wake. He is very anxious to see you well, you understand.”

Tabris doesn’t take the time to wonder who it’d be as she sits up in bed, the cool air on her bare skin soothing after her dreams of burning. It’s probably Duncan, or someone else. Morrigan watches her look around for a moment, amused by her confusion, before nodding her head in the direction of a wardrobe. The clothes she finds there are not hers – those had been quite unsalvageable, she’s told – and so they hang loose on her but at least it’s something.

By the time she leaves Morrigan’s room she’s forgotten what Morrigan had told her. She sees him before he can notice her and the way he’s pacing would be hilarious if she weren’t so overcome with relief at the sight of him.

Tabris looks over at Morrigan, puzzled, and breaks the silence. “I thought you said the king was dead.”

Alistair spins on his heel suddenly to stare at her in awe as Morrigan shrugs and says, “I said there was no king. And, lo and behold, this man is no king. Now Ferelden has a queen, and her father is her regent, and I continue not to care about the politics of the ‘ _civilized world_ ’. More time has passed than you realize, Grey Warden.”

Before she has even a chance to take this in, Alistair’s hands are on her shoulders, turning her to face him, and oh, he looks like he might break. “I thought I’d lost you again,” he whispers.

Tabris is nearly overwhelmed again, and for the second time in however long it’s been she’s struck with the urge to press her mouth to his. She wants to tell him _Never_ , wants to say _Nothing could ever take me from this world unless I let it_. “Yeah, well,” she says instead, flustered, squirming out of his grip. “Here I am.”

Morrigan _tsk_ s, shakes her head, and mercifully breaks the tension. “Honestly, the man has no faith in magic. I told him mother would take care of you, but still he worried.”

When Flemeth sends Morrigan off with them, Tabris can’t tell whether she’s relieved or disappointed not to be alone with Alistair. Then again, with the weight of the world suddenly thrust upon her shoulders, there isn’t much time to dwell on such feelings. And as they’re joined by bards, assassins, and other misfits, Tabris is almost able to put such thoughts out of mind altogether.

(And if her hand sometimes lingers on his at dinner when she’s passing him his plate, if her gaze follows him when he retreats to his tent for the night, well – no one mentions it.)

 

iii.

Loghain had at least had the good grace to wait until _after_ the kingdom has mourned its fallen soldiers to deliver the news: That the king was nowhere to be seen and that he was, moreover, not only a bastard but an _elf-blooded_ bastard (“I really do not see the problem here,” Morrigan says upon learning the news. “What is the difference, really, besides perhaps a slightly longer history?”). That he’s a traitor now, to be hunted down and killed – if he still lives.

Now everywhere they go, they keep their heads down (Tabris is in familiar territory here, well used to hiding from those by whom she doesn’t want to be seen; Alistair is reverting to old habits learned from living in a home that was never his, making himself small and trying to look as unimposing as possible; and really they’re in good company for hiding, with a bard and an assassin and a lifelong apostate – no, they have no trouble at all with that) and travel the whole of the country, slowly amassing some semblance of an army.

They find time to catch up, still. To reminisce about Redcliffe, before war and before death had touched either of them, before Isolde let her own jealousy throw them all in separate directions. _Do you remember,_ Alistair will begin, and there are so many things they _do_ remember, so many misadventures and long talks and evenings spent dozing in the courtyard as the sun settled behind the castle walls. They’d planned to cross the sea, once, after Alistair had filched a map from the library. Rivain had the prettiest name, Tabris had declared, and plus there were _pirates_ in Rivain, so they ought to go there to be pirates too. They’d gotten as far as trying to build the boat before they’d decided it was more trouble than it was worth, and set their sights on some other lofty, dangerous goal. And isn’t funny, they muse over the fire when everyone else has gone to sleep, that so many years later they’ve met a real Rivaini pirate? Alistair declared that she was all he had expected a pirate would be like, and more.

“This is the most I’ve seen outside of Redcliffe and Denerim, you know,” Tabris says one night. She’s stretched out across her bedroll, which she’d taken from her tent to lay beside Alistair’s as has become their habit, and Alistair is lying on his side, watching her.

(And she sees the way he looks at her, it’s impossible to ignore, and she knows that this is the thin thread that strands them between being strangers and the inseparable souls they’d been once. And Maker, it’s not _fair,_ knowing how easily she could snap that thread and press herself close to him the way she wants to, the way she used to except _different_ , warmer – it’s not fair because she _can’t_ , because when this is all over he’s going to have to go back to being king, and Tabris – well, she doesn’t know _what_ she’ll be after this. Tabris knows uncertainty; it’s been the one constant in her life and she knows how to navigate it so that she lands on her feet. But now she feels as though she’s falling and falling and falling, and there’s nothing at the bottom except empty air. And all she can do is twist and flail until she catches hold of something solid.)

Tabris looks away from him, up at the sky where the stars are slowly beginning to blink into the air as everything around them darkens. “I didn’t think I’d ever get to see this much. I haven’t thought about traveling like this since… well, since you left.” In a moment of recklessness, perhaps spurred on by the knowledge that they could die at any moment, she sits up and reaches for her neck. “D’you want to see something?” she asks, pulling a necklace out from under the collar of her shirt. Alistair’s eyes go wide at the glint of silver as the pendant catches the light of the fire.

“That’s…” He laughs, a little breathless. “I’d almost forgotten. I would have thought you’d have sold it.” When that’s met with an indignant look from Tabris he adds, “I don’t mean that in a bad way! I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had, is all. May I?” He reaches over and takes hold of the pendant, tracing the symbol on its face. “Do you remember when I gave it to you?”

Tabris resists the urge to roll her eyes. “Kind of hard not to, given all the shouting that went on that day. I think I can still recite Isolde’s entire tirade from memory.”

“No, I mean…” Here Alistair stares fixedly down at his hands, which are fidgeting incessantly now. “Do you remember what I said when I gave it to you.”

Now Tabris has to look away too, and for some reason she feels _afraid_ , like she’s standing at the edge of the water in the dead of winter, willing herself to jump in but unable to make her feet leave the ground. “No,” she replies firmly, slipping the necklace beneath her shirt again. “I remember you said goodbye. I remember –“ she pauses to laugh. “I remember that we managed to sneak a scrap of the fish meant for dinner out of the kitchen, and you managed to stick it in Isolde’s hair. She didn’t figure it out all day! She kept wondering and wondering why no one would come near. I think it took _days_ before she realized.”

They laugh at the memory until their stomachs hurt, occasionally recalling similar anecdotes when they can find the breath to speak. Finally they settle back on their bedrolls, and their shoulders are touching and the warmth of Alistair’s skin bleeds through Tabris’s shirt. They fall asleep like that, out in the empty air as embers from the fire rise above them to be carried off by the wind, for just the briefest instant before they flicker out. In the instant before sleep takes her, Tabris thinks she’s an ember, too, swept far from home by the wind and delighting in it even as she knows that she, too, will fade quickly. Then her hand finds Alistair’s, and for the first night in months her sleep is dreamless.

(And here is the truth of it: Tabris remembers very well what he’d said the day he left, when he’d pressed the necklace into her hand and closed her fingers around it, the warmth of his hand burning her all the way through. “Marry me,” he’d said, urgently and with all the earnestness of a twelve-year-old who thinks they can make anything happen through sheer dint of will and an ardent promise. It was his mother’s, once, this necklace – the only thing left of her that he had, and he gave it to her, certain that he’d see her again.

Tabris had laughed and shoved at him playfully. “Templars can’t get married. You’re supposed to be devoted to the Maker and huntin’ mages or whatever, right?” But Alistair looked just as determined as ever.

“I don’t care,” he’d said. He’d told her he would leave when he was old enough; that he’d come back and find her and they’d escape together. “Say you will, Veriel. Marry me, that is.” The use of that name – she rarely heard it anymore, except from her mother – brought a smile to her face that she couldn’t keep back.

At first she didn't say anything; in answer she’d only stood on her toes to kiss him instead, just for the briefest of moments, before slipping the amulet around her neck. “You’d better come back.” And then Eamon had pulled him gently away and Alistair was trying so very hard not to cry and the doors were closing behind them and Alistair caught her eye one last time before she lost sight of him.

It was a nice dream, but even then it was just a dream. And now it’s farther away than it could ever be, so Tabris pretends that she’d just imagined the whole scene and prays that Alistair follows suit.)

(He won't. She already knows.)


	3. because our love's the slowest moving train

i.

Isolde is nothing if not consistent. She doesn’t even recognize Tabris when she comes running down the hill from the castle, and she _still_ treats her like shit. Nice to know some things never change, Tabris thinks wryly. Even Teagan remembers her, and he only met her a few times. Still, she sends Teagan back up with Isolde as she asks despite Morrigan’s admonitions (she’s quite used to Morrigan’s disapproval by now), knowing that Isolde lacks the cunning to be plotting any sort of trap and, quite frankly, just eager to get this whole thing over with.

Tabris doesn’t have much experience with magic beyond what she knows of Morrigan’s, but she doesn’t think any prior knowledge could have prepared her for what they find once they make their way into the castle. Tabris had never thought the dead could rise, and even after the fifteenth re-dead corpse has been felled she still doesn’t quite believe it. Darkspawn? Sure, easy enough to believe even before she’s seen them. Ghosts? Well, she’s never _not_ encountered one. But, although Tabris isn’t the least bit religious, she’d always figured that what the Maker put to rest _stayed_ there. It just isn’t right, all these skeletons running about, brandishing swords and all that. By the time they reach the main hall she’s willing to do almost anything to get rid of them for the sake of her own peace of mind, to say nothing of the possessed blood mage in the making, or of his awful parents that now need to be protected from him. And yet –

“No,” is Alistair’s firm, instantaneous response to Jowan’s suggestion. “Absolutely _not_.”

Tabris gives an awkward, surprised kind of laugh that comes out all staccato and stilted, not at all smooth as she’d intended. “Alistair,” she says, sweet and sickly, “may I talk with you for a minute?” Everyone turns to her, looking equally dubious, but Alistair acquiesces and follows her as she strides briskly off.

She waits until they’re in a corridor outside the main hall before she stabs her finger into his chest and practically growls, “We have a solution to this frankly _horrifying_ problem, and a _willing participant_ in this solution, and you’re _really_ not going to let us take it?”

“Isolde _raised_ me, Tabris. You _know_ that.” And he bristles the way he always does when he’s gearing himself up to argue with someone, shoulders squared and _still_ looking as though he’s wrestling with doubt. “How can you expect me to let her sacrifice herself like that, when her son won’t even get to say goodbye?”

“That woman didn’t raise you, she constantly belittled and neglected you, and then she got rid of you as soon as the opportunity presented itself!”

Tabris can see Alistair’s jaw clench at the reference to his life before, and she feels badly for having brought it up but there isn’t any going back now. “That doesn’t mean she deserves to _die_ ,” he hisses, taking a step towards her so that she has to look up at him. He’s trying to intimidate, but they both know it doesn’t work in the least.

“It _means_ ,” she says, “that if she’s volunteering, we should let her do it. This whole mess is her fault in the first place. I don’t understand why you have to choose _now_ of all times to be difficult. How can you defend the woman who made you feel like a mistake?”

The silence that follows rings in her ears, and Tabris is abruptly, painfully aware of how loud she’s gotten; she’s sure the others must have heard at least that. Only when they’ve both stopped talking do they realize how close they are, both of them breathing hard. If she were to lean up just a bit, if she were to tilt his head down…

Alistair breaks that train of thought for her, before it can get ahead of her. “We’ll go to Kinloch Hold,” he says in the quiet voice that tells Tabris he isn’t going to argue this point any longer. “We’ll get the lyrium that Jowan needs for his sodding ritual.”

Tabris takes a big step back and stares defiantly at him. The idea of leaving Redcliffe to fend for itself against this curse is _uncomfortable_ , to say the least; after all this had been her home, once. Sort of. But it had been Alistair’s, too, more so than it had ever been hers, and if he thinks that this is best – if he feels it’s important enough to challenge Tabris on it for the first time since this whole thing began – she’s willing to cede control to him, just this once. She breaks his gaze at length, and with a muttered assent she strides back into the main hall to break the news and prepare them all for the trip to come.

ii.

She finds him in the Fade, he’s the last one she’s got to wake, and she almost doesn’t want to. She feels like she’s intruding upon something deeply private, has to fight the urge to turn and run off to leave him to his dreams. The others had been easy to wake, trapped in their personal nightmares as they’d been – Wynne and Zevran had been grateful, and Tabris had been grateful herself to have been able to free them. But the instant she enters what she knows is Alistair’s dream, she feels a calm settle upon her that even her dream had lacked (she’d dreamed of home, real home in the alienage, with Shianni and Soris and her father, and they were all sitting on the floor watching Adaia cook, listening to Adaia tell all their favorite stories. After waking she’d spent more time than she’d care to admit sitting in the wastes of her dream, curled up as though she could physically keep herself from coming apart). The instant he sees her he’s so happy to find her, as though this is where she really belongs.

“There you are,” he laughs, tucking her head beneath his chin and breathing into her hair, and for a moment Tabris herself wonders if she’s real, or just another part of his dream. Then without warning there’s a house around them, the quaint, cozy kind with a fire burning so that the floors are doused in soft yellow light; Tabris hears children’s laughter from outside, and her heart breaks a little for Alistair, for the life he’s lost. He never wanted to be king, still doesn’t want to be – he’s still Just Alistair in his dreams, if nowhere else.

When she pulls away, though, she’s suddenly aware of a cool weight on her finger. The firelight glints off a brilliant diamond, the brightest she’s ever seen and suddenly Tabris can’t breathe, can’t look at him; she just turns sharply on her heel and bolts, swallowing bile and trying not to think of home, of the day she left it and the ring she’d sold for five silvers the second she was able. The farther she runs from the cottage, the more things twist and blend; she passes trees that tug at her sleeves and call for her with the plaintive voice of the young (she can see faces in the hollows of the trunks. She refuses to recognize them) and the sky and the ground begin to mingle in a dizzying sort of way that makes Tabris think she might be sick. She’s reaching the limits of the dream, she knows, but at least the ring is gone and she can breathe again.

When Alistair catches up to her (he always has, always does) he takes hold of her arm with a gentleness that threatens to break her.

“Tab,” he says, his voice soft and his eyes softer. “What’s wrong? I made dinner, the kids are waiting for you.” Tabris thinks of the templar back in the Circle, alone with that desire demon, and she wants to scream. Instead she only gives him a slow, sad smile.

“They’re not real, Alistair. This isn’t your life; you’re a king now. We need you with us.”

He stares at her, understanding struggling with his stubborn desire to stay _here_ , with her and all the other things he can’t have. He shakes his head slowly, as though without thinking about it, again and again, whispering, “But that was just a bad dream. I’m awake now.”

Tabris takes hold of his shoulders. “Think about how you got here, Al. Try to remember.” She watches his brow furrow, watches him frown the way he used to when he would practice his reading and she would watch. “You can’t, can you?” she says. “There’s a big blank space between the Circle and now. A demon has us – this is where it lives.” She lets him take that in, lets him recover from the shock of it before she adds, “Also, seven kids, Alistair? That’s just excessive.”

(When the children begin to change, their bodies shifting into something terrible, inhuman, screeching in anger and indignation, Tabris lets Alistair turn away. She pretends not to notice the shake of his shoulders, the way he scrubs hard at his eyes. He turns to look at her one more time before he wakes, and she feels like she’s watching him leave for the monastery all over again.)

iii.

After the Circle things are uncomfortable, interactions stilted. The whole way back to Redcliffe Tabris walks far ahead of Alistair with Zevran, leaving him with Wynne for company. All their dreams weigh down on her, all at once – she was the only one who saw them all, the only one who had to tear them away from them (she thinks of Alistair’s cottage with the fire burning hushed and quiet, and she thinks she’s never done anything more cruel) and the knowledge and the memories are painful to the point of pain.

Still, she stands with the rest of them as they anxiously watch Jowan’s unconscious form, and she catches Connor when he faints once the demon’s gone, and she tolerates Isolde’s passive aggression and Teagan’s attempts at catching up (ordinarily she wouldn’t mind; she’s quite fond of Teagan. But Maker, she’s so _tired_ ). She even makes it halfway through Isolde’s uncomfortable celebratory dinner before she finally excuses herself and stumbles into the courtyard, taking deep breaths of the night air and slumping against the old tree she’d loved so much so many years ago.

She should have expected to feel strange coming back here, given that she’d only ever been a guest here, really, but still the feeling catches her by surprise. Some part of her thought she’d have missed this place, maybe could still see it as at least half of a home. Instead she only feels uneasy here, even in her courtyard, and eager to leave. But they can’t do that till tomorrow, and probably Alistair wants to catch up with the people he tries to pretend is his family. Anyway it’s been a long day for all of them; the least she can do is give them some time to relax a bit, even if every nerve in her is screaming to get out, to be free of this place once and for all.

The sound of a door closing breaks her from her reverie, and she turns to see Alistair watching her expectantly. He’s waiting for permission, she realizes, to be with her.

“Hi,” she says; Alistair laughs, the quiet rumbling kind that makes Tabris’s fingers buzz with a strange, unfamiliar energy.

“We were wondering where you’d gotten off to.” He sits beside her, letting his head tilt back so he’s staring into the canopy. “I worried you’d gotten lost, like you used to when you first got here.”

She smiles faintly at that. “I’m sure Isolde would have been terribly pleased.”

They sit there for some time in quiet, companionable silence, letting their shoulders touch and listening to the night wake. The sun has only just set, and the crickets have already begun their lively song; the last cicadas of summer chirp sadly, as though saying farewell to the prime of their lives; something rustles in the trees as it readies itself for sleep, shaking loose a handful of leaves that float gently to the ground below.

“So.” Alistair is the first to break the silence (he generally is; he’s always felt more uncomfortable in silence than Tabris has; perhaps because for him silence meant solitude and loneliness, whereas for her it only ever has meant peace). “Weird couple days, yeah?” _Weird_ doesn’t even begin to cover it. Tabris laughs, and that’s all the answer he needs, really. “That demon was by far _the_ ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. With the exception of Morrigan, obviously,” he adds, and pointedly ignores a playful elbow jab from Tabris. “Maker, and that _voice_ -“

“ _Rest a while, close your eyes_ ,” Tabris rasps in a poor imitation of the demon’s gravelly tone; Alistair pretends to swoon. Their laughter dies quickly, like a wave on the rocks, because Tabris knows why Alistair’s brought up the Circle, the demon. Of course she knows; she knows Alistair the way she knows the feeling of her left hand curling into a fist, the way she knows how the sun feels hitting her face through the window at the break of morning. Eight years haven’t changed that, at least, though things may have hiccupped a little at first. Oddly enough, even for all the time they’ve spent apart Alistair is still one of the few constants in her life; now she counts him among the things that remind her that the world still hasn’t ended, just a fact of life. The days get longer in the summer and shorter in the winter; the moon goes in phases; Alistair is in her life and always will be, and if she reached out to touch him she’d find him reaching back.

But now he wants to _talk_ about feelings, and _that_ is something Tabris simply does not do. Not in a mutual sort of way, at any rate; usually she’s content to listen to people talk about feelings so long as she doesn’t have to reciprocate. It’s uncomfortable. It’s awkward. It _changes_ things in a way that Tabris can’t just fix like she would anything else. Sighing, she decides it’s best to get all this nonsense out of the way so they can both put their earlier ordeal behind them.

“About earlier, then.” At that Alistair reddens faster than she thought possible for someone to, and focuses intently on the path of a lone ant crawling near his hand; Tabris snorts. “Look, we may as well get it out there. It happened, we’ve got to… acknowledge it, or whatever. You dreamt we were _married_ , Al. I mean I know we joked about it in the past, but we were twelve. And anyway I thought you’d be married by now. To someone else, that is.”

He chuckles humorlessly. “Oh, Eamon tried for a while. It was even suggested at some point that I marry Anora, since Cailan never got around to it. But the thing is, I never asked to be king, never even thought about it. I didn’t think it was something I’d ever have to worry about, so I never made a plan for that possibility. I always just planned on living a slightly more ordinary life. Marrying for love. Living with her far away from where we grew up. That sort of thing, you know.”

There’s an implied caveat there, but Tabris can’t for the life of her figure out what _exactly_ it is, or how Alistair would even articulate it if he’d wanted to (she’s frustrated that he doesn’t; she’s grateful, though, too). So they just let that sink in and absorb the significance of what he’s left unsaid, and avoid each other’s eyes.

“So,” says Tabris, and Alistair echoes her with a nervous laugh before they both lapse into silence again. She gets a strange feeling in her limbs, like she’s just tripped at the top of a flight of stairs and is, for a brief moment, weightless and falling and on the verge of tumbling down before catching hold of something to save her. And when at last she turns back to face him she finds he’s been staring at her, and she wonders what he could possibly be seeing because he looks for all the world as though he’s just watched the stars fall out of the sky, as though he can’t believe he’s still awake. As though if he were to look away, she would fade and slip through his grasp.

Tabris is hopelessly endeared. Tabris doesn’t think she’s ever been so afraid in her life.

She feels like she’s rushing heedlessly towards some inevitability that she couldn’t ever hope to define, doesn’t have the presence of mind to define, and without meaning to she finds herself leaning in until their lips meet; Alistair makes a helpless sort of sighing sound and in one swift movement crushes her to him, and everything falls into place so perfectly that for just an instant Tabris stops breathing. Tabris has imagined this – more often than she’d willingly admit, really – but the feeling and the taste of him take her completely by surprise. Irrationally she’s reminded of Ostagar, of the sensation of falling without bones or a body or conscious thought; she wants to laugh at herself for being so girlish about it. It isn’t like she’s never kissed anyone, after all. Quite the opposite, in fact, and she’d kissed Alistair too before they’d parted ways, for the Maker’s sake. But this – this is altogether different, a sort of different that sears her to her bones and changes absolutely everything, tells her that this has been waiting to happen possibly since the moment she first drew breath. She shivers and she knows Alistair can feel it in her neck, where his hand is delicately wrapped around like something precious, treasured; and then they part, and she knows as well as he does that there isn’t any coming back from this. They had been balanced precariously on the tip of – of _something_ , but now they’ve tilted, shifted things so that now there’s was no other choice but to move – in any direction, just so long as they’re _moving_.

“Oh,” is all she can really say when it’s all over and done with. She’s still close enough to him to feel his breath ghosting across her face. The dazed look on his face makes her want to kiss him again, over and over, and then lower to his neck, where she can see him swallow hard. She wants to – she _wants_ , she wants things that she can’t even really put to words in her head but the simple word _want_ thrums in her head and through every part of her, her every cell pleading to be pressed up against him with nothing between them, and –

“Maker’s breath,” he whispers, the words coming out in an awed sigh, “but you’re beautiful.” And he must have noticed Tabris’s staring but he’s obviously misinterpreted it because the smitten expression on his face quickly gives way to panic. “Was that too fast? Did I do something wrong?”

Tabris pulls sharply away from him, before she does something very, very rash. Like push him onto the ground right then and there and see what sounds he’d make if she were to bite a bruise onto the space between his neck and his ear. Then she registers that he’s spoken, and that she has no idea what to say to a question like that. “Did I do something wrong,” he’d asked, and Tabris fights back a manic peal of laughter. _Depends on your definition of “wrong,”_ she wants to say. Wrong as in she, a lowborn elf, had just kissed the king? Wrong as in he’d kissed back? Wrong as in they’ve both fundamentally changed their friendship – perhaps even ruined it – motivated by mere impulse and a sudden rush of unidentifiable emotion?

What she ends up saying, though, is a full sentence (if it can be called as much) of not-quite-words and very-much-stumbling until she finally gets a hold of herself. “I don’t, um. I don’t rightly know. I mean, it was – nice? Good?” _Very eloquent, Tabris_ , she thinks, mentally rolling her eyes at herself. “I don’t know, maybe it was a mistake. This was definitely a mistake. Fuck, Al, I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was – you can just pretend this didn’t happen. I mean, you _should_ ,” she finishes wretchedly. And before he can get another word out, she’s practically running back into the castle, back through the winding corridors and to the dining room where she gives a flimsy excuse for her absence that she forgets immediately after the words have left her mouth, before fumbling gracelessly towards her room which, mercifully, is separated from Alistair’s by several halls.

Her sleep then is uneasy and riddled by dreams, the likes of which she would never admit to anyone, even to Zevran. Her only satisfaction comes in seeing that Alistair is in a similar shape. A small comfort, but she’ll take what she can get. He tries to catch her eye all through breakfast; Tabris studiously avoids his gaze.

She gets the very strong, very _certain_ sense that the journey from Redcliffe to Denerim is going to be thoroughly unpleasant. _Just my luck_.


	4. all things soft and deathly quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this fic was not supposed to be as long as it is turning out to be. life is like that sometimes.
> 
> i swear i kind of know where i'm going with this.
> 
> edit: turns out when you write at 2 am you forget some rather vital details, one of them being that in this au alistair isnt.. yet.. a warden. learn from me, children. heed my words.
> 
> anyway i fixed that so. that's over and done with

i.

Denerim _happens_. That’s all that can be said about the whole thing, really (that is, Tabris has a lot _more_ to say on the matter but just thinking about it is exhausting enough and so, when Wynne asks how things went, that’s all she says). By the time they leave for Haven – wherever the _fuck_ that is – per Brother Genetivi’s notes, Tabris feels as though she’s aged ten years. When they get back to camp she disappears into the forest for a long while; when she joins the rest of them again, they all pretend not to notice because that’s what she expects.

For a day or so after that, Zevran is the only one in the party whom she speaks to beyond simple instructions; he never lived in an alienage, but he seems to understand her well enough. Elves live the same no matter where you go, evidently. For hours at a time they split off from the rest of the group, speaking in hushed tones. The others say nothing of her red-rimmed eyes when they fall back again to rejoin the party. After that first day she warms up somewhat, but everyone else keeps their distance for the most part, offering comfort in the most subtle ways they can – even Leliana, who herself is still shaken from their encounter with Marjolaine.

She offers to take Tabris’s watch so that she can sleep (Tabris always declines); Morrigan sits silently beside Tabris at the fire when they’re at camp in the night; Sten finally condescends to spar with her – using just his fists, which never fails to amaze her – so that she doesn’t need to hold back. Wynne leaves her extra food at meals when it’s her turn to cook, and stops Morrigan’s and Alistair’s bickering on Tabris’s behalf (which really Tabris appreciates more than anything, for the constant noise had been giving her a headache).

And Alistair… Tabris can’t be around him without being reminded of Redcliffe, and what happened in the courtyard. Things had changed, just as she’d feared, and now just the sight of him sets something off in her chest that pulses in her ears and warms her to the tips of her fingers. They talk, of course – they can’t _not_ – almost as they had before Redcliffe; but there’s something between them that keeps them from getting too close, that drags out silences between them whenever they stand watch together. Tabris, who could probably charm the pants off the Maker himself, is endlessly frustrated by the return of this awkwardness. She blames herself, mostly, for having pushed things into motion in the first place but Alistair had followed with her, hadn’t he?

Or maybe throwing blame around isn’t the right way of going about things.

At any rate she’s thankful when Zevran takes her hunting with him and Leliana; it saves her from having to stay behind making dinner with Alistair, as she’s been stuck doing for the past couple days. Really she’s thankful for Zevran in general; he’s taken the lead whenever she finds herself too emotionally exhausted to do it, and moreover she feels a great deal better being in the company of another elf. She would have trouble expressing all this to him – how _do_ other people put words to a feeling? She’s never understood it – but he seems to understand.

Tabris can feel the Blight in these woods the moment she makes it past the clearing; the trees are tainted at the roots, dark poison feeding into them and twisting them fundamentally. The wolves sense it and lash out at anything they can blame, in hopes that they can take back their home before they really lose it. They don’t realize that they’re tainted, too, corrupted and addled with the same dark magic that fuels the darkspawn. Tabris regrets every one she kills, but hopes she’s at least given them some measure of peace.

She knows at least that the taint doesn’t affect deer; Duncan had told her as much on the way to Ostagar when she’d expressed concerns. The stronger animals succumb first, apparently. Leliana is the only one of them who uses a bow; Tabris and Zevran favor their knives, though Zevran could wield a bow as well if he so wished – Tabris suspects he must just think he looks more suave throwing knives.

They’ve been quiet for some time, the only sound being that of their feet crunching over dead leaves and twigs, when out of the blue Zevran asks, “So what happened between you and Alistair? He wouldn’t tell me.” Before she can say “nothing” he adds “And don’t say it _didn’t_ happen. You two have been avoiding one another for days now.”

Tabris contemplates whether or not the benefits of throwing a knife through his neck right then and there might outweigh the costs. “Fine,” she snaps, “we kissed _once_. In Redcliffe. Decided it wasn’t going to happen again.”

“A mutual decision then, was it?” Leliana giggles from Tabris’s left.

“Well it’s – it would just be best if we put the whole thing to rest and pretend it didn’t happen,” Tabris grumbles, shooting Leliana a baleful look. And all this time she’d thought she could trust her!

Zevran only smiles blithely. “But you don’t _want_ to pretend it didn’t happen. You want to continue where you left off, yes?”

“No! Of course not! I have no interest in pursuing _relations_ with the _king of fucking F –“_

“Wait.” Tabris is cut off when Zevran suddenly shoves his arm out in front of her, effectively stopping her from moving further.

She looks around frantically in search of whatever had given the other pause, but she doesn’t see anything besides trees, and… more trees. “What?”

Zevran doesn’t say anything for a while, just sniffs at the air. Then: “Leliana… do you smell that?”

“I do, Zevran,” she replies thoughtfully, taking a delicate sniff.

“What could it be… It smells like…”

“Why, my dear Zevran, it smells like denial!”

“Ah, yes, that’s it.” The assassin grins broadly as he narrowly evades a left hook from Tabris, but his expression quickly grows serious. “But really, my dear, you need to at least talk about it. I can feel the misery _radiating_ off the poor lad and it makes night watches rather uncomfortable.”

Tabris only glares at him and storms ahead, and that’s the end of it. Still, the thought nags at her as she returns to camp with the other two; she’s afraid she can feel him slipping away, that if they stay in this limbo for any longer whatever string has been tying them to one another will snap. And it feels so _wrong_ to imagine a future where she and Alistair are not _something_ , so wrong that her stomach sinks at the very thought.

Maybe that’s why, when dinner’s done and things have been set away, Tabris sits beside him at the fire and, without even thinking about it, tells him, “I was married once, you know.”

That earns her a look from Alistair that can only be described as something that slowly transforms to surprise, confusion, and then vague indignation. “You didn’t tell me you’ve been married,” he says accusingly. “… What happened to the groom?”

“He died. It’s how I came to be with the Wardens. I don’t much like to talk about it.”

“Oh.” He’s silent for a moment, taking that in. The fire crackles; a log falls suddenly, sending tiny sparks into the air as if to say “oh, get on with it already.” It startles a laugh out of him, and Tabris laughs with him (she has to; it’s impossible not to when he looks like that, eyes crinkled at the corners in a lovely sort of way that makes her want to kiss him all over again). “Why are you telling me this then?” he asks, head canted to the side.

Tabris shrugs. “I wanted to. But I had to make sure that you were still you, and not like…” She trails off. “Not like some snooty shem prince. But then I guess you’re not even really a shem all the way, are you?” Alistair jumps when she runs a finger along the side of his ear (and now that she thinks about it, they do have a certain quality about them that just barely distinguishes them as nonhuman); Tabris laughs again. Then her stomach gets that feeling again, that sense of falling, and she tries to sort out the words she wants.

“What I mean to say is that you’re the closest thing I have to a home right now, and I don’t want that to change. Well, or really I suppose it _is_ changing, and I don’t – I don’t really know what to do. But I know that I want to be with _you_ , in whatever capacity that might entail, and that wherever we’re going, we’re going together. So –“ Tabris scowls and makes a frustrated noise. “Shite, I don’t know where I’m going with this. I don’t know, I guess I’ve said my piece.”

Before she can dwell on how terribly _awkward_ she’s being, Alistair’s hands are on her face and his mouth is against hers and – oh – things fall into place like they did before, and Tabris realizes just how right she was. It feels _right_ to be here, to cup his face in her hands and brush the pads of her thumbs over the stubble on his jaw; right to curl closer to him. Like stepping over the threshold into her home, where her family and bed wait. And she may never see that again – her eyes prickle with tears at the thought; she doesn’t let herself cry – so she’ll take this.

This time she lets Alistair pull away first, which he does after a _considerable_ amount of time. Tabris can’t help the ridiculous smile that spreads across her face.

“I take it you’re in agreement, then.”

Alistair looks drunk and it takes a moment for him to snap out of whatever stupor he’s in. “Oh, absolutely.”

 

ii.

Orzammar is their last destination. Tabris feels trapped, confined; she finds herself having to remind herself to breathe, and if it weren’t for Wynne’s quiet reassurances she’d have lost herself days ago. As it is she’s frustrated enough by the petty squabbling between nobles – she’d hoped dwarven politics might be a little different from shem politics, but as it turns out the rich turn out to be the same no matter where you go. They’re the reason they’re in the Deep Roads now, cutting their way through what must be a fourth of the darkspawn horde and enduring the ramblings of a perpetually inebriated dwarf.

The instant they emerge she knows that the image of the broodmother will stay with her for as long as she lives. The rest wait until she’s finished dry heaving before they finally return, and from there things are a blur. She closes her eyes and she’s back there again, the smell of rotting flesh cloying and inescapable; she can’t get away. She only comes back to herself when they’re in the Commons and the name “Aeducan” falls from her lips; she watches then as a smug dwarf kneels for his crown, and feels her heart sink a little.

“The Grey Wardens do not interfere in politics,” Duncan had said in the alienage as the guards were closing in around her. Just another thing to add to the long list of things Tabris has fucked up, as far as she’s concerned. She tries not to think about it anymore. At any rate she’s the last Fereldan Warden. May as well make new rules.

It’s a relief when it’s over, when they emerge into the Frostbacks where the cold air seeps into her skin, reminds her she’s alive, thriving, breathing. Alistair is holding on tightly to her hand (Morrigan grimaces; Wynne smiles fondly and elbows Oghren out of the way when he goes to make a comment), his hand warm and safe. By the time they get back to camp, things feel almost normal. Or at least, whatever passes for normal among a band of outlaws.

 

iii.

And,

 

iv.

Alistair yields so easily beneath her hands as she lays him on the ground of his tent, his gentle sighs swallowed by the slant of her mouth over his. She’s done this before with others but this time Tabris makes sure to savor it, to memorize everything she feels and he does, to make it more than just a way to pass the time the way it was in the alienage. They move together and it’s sweets bought with a week’s saved money, it’s the heat of the fire in the dead of winter, it’s the feeling of the first big snowflakes of winter and it’s a clumsy, artless thing and yet it takes the breath out of her, it’s enough to nearly make her cry. She’s murmuring quiet praise as he moves against her, by turns hoarse and sweet and he uses her name, her true one and when she comes her eyelashes are damp, her legs shaking with the force of it and Alistair – Alistair is looking at her as though she’s handed him the world and he doesn’t know what to do with it.

Later, as they’re dozing off and the air is getting colder still, Tabris mouths something into Alistair’s hair and prays he doesn’t hear it. Hopefully he already knows without being told, anyway.

(He does. He says it for her.)

 

v.

Predictably, Eamon is less than pleased when they revive him. Tabris can’t entirely blame him, of course; he’s woken up from a months-long sleep to find that it had been caused by an assassination attempt, that his son had nearly become an abomination trying to heal him, and that he had nearly lost his wife in the process of saving his son. The current state of Ferelden doesn’t do much for his mood either. Five minutes after waking he’s already on Alistair’s ass about returning to being king, and Tabris is rapidly becoming less and less sympathetic towards him.

She’d thought he was kind, once. A long time ago, before Connor had been born and before Isolde had let her jealousy get the better of her and dragged Eamon down with her. Of course even then she’d been wrong but it was a nice mistake at the time. He was kind to her, she’d found, as you were kind to something that you didn’t think was worth your time or attention, simply because it would be a waste of energy to be unkind. It was an empty kindness, and when Alistair ceased to be worth his time he’d turned it upon him. Tabris will never forgive it. It’s never even occurred to Alistair that anyone could ever treat him any differently.

Eventually formalities are done and over with, and then Eamon wants to _properly_ talk about the Landsmeet and all it entails – as well as what _he_ expects to come of it. Things come to a head when, in a fit of anger on Alistair’s behalf, she unthinkingly threatens to _stab_ the arl and feed him his own intestines, at which point Alistair ceases to be able to breathe and has to be escorted out by Teagan before he passes out from lack of air. Then Tabris is alone with Eamon, and the latter is very obviously displeased with this development.

“Listen to me, girl,” he begins, “I know what you think you are to him –“

“As I know what _you_ think you are to him, _your grace_.”

At that Eamon flushes angrily. “Do not presume to know what is best for Alistair, for this _country_. _I_ raised Alistair. I was a father to him when his own father decided he wasn’t worth the trouble. I will see him take back what is rightfully his.”

“A _father_? You?” At that she has to laugh, really and genuinely, as she circles around him to seat herself in his desk. “You gave up any right you had to call yourself that when you let that Orlesian hag push Alistair into the kennels.” She finds no end of pleasure in seeing the hurt look flash briefly across Eamon’s face. “You don’t get to say you know what’s best for him. You don’t _care_ what’s best for him, you just want to pretend you’re still relevant. I won’t see Alistair used anymore. As long as he wishes to leave the throne, he will not be king anymore."

“This isn’t about me, Warden. It’s not about Alistair, or you, or any single one of us. What matters most right now is Ferelden. Would you let the daughter of a traitor determine the fate of our country? Would you let the Theirin line end because one man, too young to know what he truly wants, wants to shirk his responsibilities in favor of an ideal, a fairytale?” Here he pauses, gives Tabris an imploring look. “What you have to understand is that there are some people who _need_ to be pushed, or they’ll never move anywhere at all. Alistair is a good king, a _fair_ king. The Mac Tir’s have been noble for just a generation; they will ruin Ferelden. We need a Theirin on the throne.”

Tabris opens her mouth to speak when suddenly there’s a noise from outside the door; something falling, and then screams, and then –

That’s definitely Alistair’s voice, and when Eamon opens the door there’s a hurlock atop Alistair, growling as he attempts to fight back. And – _Maker_ – it’s so fucking _typical_ of him to make a joke even now, even as he’s raising his arm to push the darkspawn off, as it takes hold of his arm and –

bites down –

and Tabris is still there, standing, unsteady, but she’s also gone, gone, uncomprehending.

It’s Morrigan ultimately who kills the hurlock, sticking her staff straight through its chest, but the damage is done already; Tabris can already see the black blood beneath his now-pale skin.


	5. scatter the ashes

i.

“How did this happen? Who let that thing in?” Eamon, otherwise useless, elects to scold everyone else as always. Now he paces back and forth anxiously as Alistair sits against the wall nursing his arm.

Morrigan watches on, clearly irritated. “We were merely standing here, doing nothing much, at all,” she says. She taps her staff on the hurlock; it makes a wet sound and more blood spatters across the floor. “Then this thing barreled in through the door and past the servants, and it went straight for that fool.”

“Were you  _ eavesdropping _ ?” That’s Tabris, kneeling at Alistair’s side and staring accusingly at Morrigan, who shrugs helplessly.

“I simply wanted to know what all this fuss was about. We have got a Blight to worry about, and yet here you two were squabbling over politics. Very unlike you, Tabris.”

“Believe me when I say that arguing with this arsehole is the  _ last _ thing I wanted to be doing, Morrigan.”

“Guys!” Alistair is frantically glancing between them, ever the peacemaker even as he’s bleeding on the carpet. He looks like he might have another anxiety attack. “Not helping!”

Tabris glances at him, having actually forgotten about him for a moment. “Oh. Sorry, Al.” She tries to keep the edge of panic out of her voice as she turns to Morrigan and asks, “What do we  _ do _ ?”

“Mother’s grimoire offers little information about the Blight, I fear. My only suggestion is that we get his wound dressed and take stock of things once we have ensured that this was the only intruder.”

“Wynne, is there anything you can do?” Leliana asks from Alistair’s side. She helps him to his feet, gentle as she can be; still, Alistair looks as though he might faint.

Wynne looks between them all, and something in her expression makes Tabris’s stomach drop. She knows she should stay and help in whatever capacity she can, but whatever Wynne says next doesn’t even register to her and she feels so horribly useless and everything is falling apart around her the way things did in the Fade and before she even thinks about what she’s doing, she takes off at a run and leaves.

ii.

Something feels off the instant Tabris steps into Howe’s manor. Something besides the fact that she’s  _ been _ here before and knows the layout intimately, that is. The latter feeling, however – that sense of wrongness that comes with being  _ here _ again, knowing that the manor’s new owner is no better than the last, revisiting the panic that had consumed her the last time she’d been here –  is enough to distract her from the insistent iciness in her chest as she, Zevran, Morrigan and Leliana quietly make their way through.

The three of them must surely notice her odd familiarity with the dungeon’s corridors, but they know better than to mention it. She can practically see Zevran filing it away to ask about later, even as their cover’s blown and they’re cutting their way through to the heart of the manor.

Eventually the feeling gets to be too much to ignore and the instant they find the holding cells Tabris stops at the threshold as though she’s hit a wall.  _ Duncan _ , is her first thought as she recognizes the feeling of another presence washing over hers, but then she realizes that’s ridiculous because Duncan is dead and so that could only mean –

“There’s another Warden here,” Tabris chokes out right as a man’s hand darts between the bars of his cell to strangle the guard.

iii.

“There’s a way to save him, isn’t there.”

They’re safe back inside Eamon’s estate, in Tabris’s quarters where she’d dragged Riordan the instant they were able to break away from the others.

(She’s acutely aware of time passing, like all of her is a sieve and she can’t hold Alistair, can’t stop his life from slipping through.)

(She’s never coped well with helplessness. People tend to die when she feels helpless. The others, well aware of this, have made themselves scarce already. Riordan was not lucky enough to get away with them.)

“What?”

Tabris scowls. “To save him from him dying,” she says. “There’s a way, and you’re going to show me.”

Riordan looks at her, his eyes sad. “You know it wouldn’t  _ really _ be saving him. Just prolonging the inevitable.”

“I don’t  _ give  _ a damn,” she snarls, striking at the wall beside Riordan’s head; Riordan flinches but Tabris doesn’t know to stop, how to calm the insistent roar in her head to something duller. “Give him back, I know you know how. Just make him like us. I didn’t sodding ask for this, but I can tell you right now it’s better than hanging from a rope in Denerim like I would be if Duncan hadn’t come along.”

“And you don’t think Alistair deserves to choose how he dies?”

“What,” Tabris snorts, “and you think anyone chooses how they die? No way’s the right way. I could have ‘chosen’ to die in the alienage a hundred times over, but it still wouldn’t have been the right time. I wouldn’t have been choosing, just death. It chooses you, see, not the other way round.”

Riordan stares blankly at her, trying to follow her admittedly scattered thoughts. Eventually Tabris gives up on the waiting, sighs impatiently.

“Look,” she says, mercifully backing away and out of Riordan’s personal space. “I know what all the hesitation’s for. Two people died at my Joining, you know, it’s not like I don't know what it does to you. What it continues to do to you. But look – you don’t even have to be there, alright? ‘S just I don’t know how to do it myself, otherwise I would. I just need you to make the stuff, like. And I just — I can’t lose anyone else, alright? It’s all I can do, just lose people, and I thought maybe being Warden was a new leaf turning over. Like if I was stronger I could change things, keep people. And it turns out it’s all fake and I can’t even help the people closest to me.”

In the silence that follows Tabris hears the sound of another argument somewhere nearby; Eamon is about as angry over Alistair’s situation as Tabris is, albeit for different reasons. His voice carries down the hall as he comes closer, interrupted occasionally by Teagan (quieter, as he always is when he tries to reason with his elder brother). Tabris opens the door just as Eamon is beginning to ask what in the Void they’re going to  _ do _ ; the feeling of the door slamming into his face is  _ immensely _ satisfying.

“We’ve got something. An idea, y’know.” Tabris grasps Riordan’ by the shoulder, shoves him towards Eamon, and that’s that.

iv.

It takes everything Tabris has to step into the infirmary where Alistair lay on the only occupied bed, dying slowly (he still will be after this, she reminds herself). He doesn’t stir when she comes in; she’d think he was asleep only his eyes are open. As she comes closer he does turn his gaze from the ceiling to her, his eyes blank.

“Hullo,” he says, smiling wanly.

“Hi.”

Tabris shuffles anxiously and starts about a hundred different explanations and suggestions in her head. What comes out after all that is, “I’m so sorry.”

Alistair blinks, then seems to wake up more as he realizes how distressed she is. “What for?” he asks. He tries a smile. “Were  _ you _ the one who let that pesky darkspawn loose?”

“Just — shut up, Al, I’m trying to apologize.” She tries to glare at him, but she can’t manage that at the best of times. Let alone now, when he’s lying half-dead on a cot smiling at her like he hardly minds now that she’s here. 

He makes room without even seeming to think about it, leaving space enough for her to crawl onto the cot beside him. It still amazes her, how they fit together; now her head rests in the crook of his neck, like that’s what the crook of his neck is  _ for _ . Tabris tries not to think about how he smells faintly of death, about what she has to do — what  _ he _ has to do.

“It’s…” she lets out a shuddering sigh into his neck; he shivers, a little. “This isn’t what I wanted for you. You were supposed to be safe,” she says. “This wasn’t all meant to touch you but it has, and I’m why. And you’re not even angry with me, are you? It hasn’t even occurred to you to be.”

Alistair turns his head. “That’s because it isn’t your fault,” he says, weakly, into her hair. “I love you. You know that. The life you want for me to have had… that isn't what I wanted anyway. And this — well, things end, you know. I’m just glad it does with you.”

Tabris says, “Oh.” And then she sits up abruptly and looks at him, forgetting to take care not to jostle him. “Wait. That’s what I came here for, actually. You like big risks, right?”

v.

So, then: Alistair survives, barely. Life goes on for a couple days. Barely.

Dealing with Eamon and Anora is shit. Navigating shem politics is shit. The alienage is a special kind of shit, the kind that takes Tabris out of commission for the rest of the evening afterwards. Only Zevran is allowed into her quarters for the rest of the day, mostly because the idea of crying in front of anyone else is mortifying. Zevran, at least, kind of understands her anger. 

That night she falls asleep curled up tightly in on herself, her dagger in her hand rather than beneath her pillow.

Tabris decides she isn’t going to dwell on it. There are other things to do. There are  _ always _ other things to do. It’s not fair, no, but Tabris is used to unfair. Used to putting other needs before her own. And anyway, she soon finds that thinking about home and what’s happened to it in her absence makes her head all foggy and rather impedes her capacity for higher thought processes. Another thing she’ll have to deal with after this whole thing is over, along with… whatever she and Alistair are.

Which is its own can of worms, really, because between his almost-death and their preparations for the Landsmeet – mainly done apart, something that makes Tabris wonder if Eamon had a hand in it – they haven’t had much time to talk about anything, really. She’s not even really sure what Alistair wants to come of this. Dully, she wonders if maybe he still wants to be king after all (she feels selfish for wondering where that would leave her, but it is something she has to wonder). And if he doesn’t, what is she meant to do? She can’t let Loghain stay king, not after what he did, and Anora’s claim to the throne is more tenuous than that of her father. So what if it _ is _ good for Alistair to stay king? Will he resent her one day for keeping him from it?

The night before the Landsmeet finds her at the door of Alistair’s quarters. She shouldn’t be surprised, but she is — she’d come here without even really thinking about it. But she doesn't see herself sleeping tonight, not alone at least, not when everything hangs on her the way it does now. The way it has for the past year. Tabris doesn't know how she's managed it without wearing down to nothing. Then again she hasn't been _ completely _ alone, nor have most of her nights been solitary of late. That makes even the dreams tolerable.

When the door opens suddenly, Tabris just barely muffles a startled cry behind her hand.

“Oh,” says Alistair. “I thought that was you. This whole… sense-y stuff is weird. How do the Wardens put up with it all the time?” He opens the door further to let her in.

“I wouldn’t know, I’m afraid. Maybe we’ll find out after all this.” She smiles wanly at him; the smile he returns is far more promising. He has a way of doing that.

“So did you want to talk about the Landsmeet or —” He’s cut off when Tabris yanks him down by the collar of his shirt and kisses him soundly. 

When she pulls away he follows after her for a moment before he catches himself and laughs. “Yeah, me either,” he says. With that he lets her pull him towards the bed until she falls back onto it, grinning, holding her hands over her head, and he follows her down. 

For a while there’s nothing, just the heat of him flush against her and his mouth on hers, always gentle, always right. Tabris wants to live in this moment as long as she can, here where they are alone and unencumbered by the weight of the Blight. It’s been so long, she thinks, since they’ve been able to relax around each other even for a moment; longer since they’ve had a proper bed, and Tabris intends to make the most of it, whatever that may entail. Now she wraps her legs loosely around his waist, pulls him closer still and he gasps at the pressure on his cock.

“But —” He’s panting as he pulls back from her for a moment, a high color in his cheeks. Tabris pouts up at him and arches in a vain attempt to distract him, but he’s determined. “I just — I know you didn’t come to talk about tomorrow but I just need to ask… whatever happens then, it’ll still be you and me, right? I won’t lose you, no matter what?”

“That’s a big promise to make,” Tabris murmurs. She squirms a little as she shrugs off her gown (Isolde’s, really, because Tabris doesn’t own any sleeping clothes. There’s probably some kind of irony to that, but Tabris is at present a bit too busy to contemplate it) and tosses it to the side. She’s determined not to meet his gaze, but he nudges her chin so she’s looking right up at him and Tabris feels her breath catch. He’s gorgeous like this, unabashedly earnest and soft and wanting her and — well, his shirt came off somewhere between the door and the bed and that certainly doesn’t hurt matters.

Alistair dips his head and kisses lightly at her neck, draws little gasps from her before he brushes his nose against hers. “Promise anyway,” he implores, and how can she say no? Tabris breathes out a shaky laugh, because he’s moved to her ears and his mouth is doing something  _ wonderful _ .

“Fine,” she says, “fine. No matter what.”

Alistair smiles so sweetly at her before rolling them onto their sides and kissing her again, roughly now, making a soft little sound when Tabris runs her hand down his back. Something swells in Tabris, something to which she’s accustomed by now even as she hesitates to name it (she should, she knows, Maker knows he has but even now she’s afraid of what it means to let herself want a person this much) and she knows she meant what she said. Just once she allows herself this selfishness, tells herself he’ll still have her even after tomorrow, no matter what that means for them both.

“Maker, but I love you,” he whispers when at last they pause to breathe. His eyes are soft and Tabris wants to tell him now, but he doesn’t expect her to. She thinks he already knows and that’s enough for him. And that’s exactly why she… well. Loves him.

Her stomach jumps as he rolls her over again onto her back and gently kisses down, down, before he’s mouthing at the sensitive skin on the inside of her thigh, a hand at her breast, and Tabris can’t keep from rolling her hips in hopes he’ll be merciful and stop  _ teasing  _ already. “You know I, hah — came here for  _ you _ . To comfort you, I mean.”

Alistair tilts his head up and grins at her. His pupils are blown like she knows hers must be. “You haven’t come at all yet, actually,” he says. Tabris just barely resists the urge to kick him in the head, and that’s only because now he’s finally slipping off her smalls and lifting one of her legs to rest on his back and —  _ Fuck,  _ she thinks, letting her head fall back onto the pillow, but he’s good at that.

For all she knows anyone could probably hear them given how close Alistair’s quarters are to everyone else’s, Tabris can’t help the sound she makes when Alistair presses the flat of his tongue against her clit. He’s only encouraged by it, moving faster until Tabris can hardly breathe it feels so good. With the hand that isn’t on her breast he slips two fingers inside her and it’s enough, it’s perfect. Tabris comes apart, shaking, with a hoarse cry and stars behind her eyes.

Alistair still hasn’t stopped by the time she can form coherent thought again, trying to coax another orgasm out of her, but doesn’t protest when she drags him up and presses hot kisses to his neck.

“Fuck’s sake, Al,” she pants, grinding against him again, “get the rest of your clothes off.” He obliges, but not before kissing her forehead with a softness that belies the heat of the moment.

Tabris takes a moment to admire him like this — his cock is free and very hard, a fact Tabris takes advantage of, pushing him down into the mattress to press a kiss to the head of it. She’s just got her mouth wrapped around him when Alistair runs his hand through her hair – longer than it was nearly a year ago, she notices for the first time – and lifts her head away.

“Hey,” he mumbles, and Tabris glances up to see he’s got his other arm thrown over his face, obviously struggling to keep himself together, “none of that now. C’mere.” From the sound of his voice Tabris can tell he’s close already somehow; she takes a secret pride in that as she sits astride him and sinks down. He moans now, unabashedly, and his hips twitch up impatiently in a silent request for her to move. She sighs, shudders gently and does as she’s bade.

Any rhythm she starts with is quickly lost as Tabris nears climax again. Not that Alistair cares — he’s too focused on making this last, and staring at her so intently she’d be embarrassed if his desire weren’t written so plainly on his face. And anyway, his hands are keeping her a little too occupied for her to worry about how she must look. 

At length she takes pity on him and says, “Let go, love, go on.” Before he can form a proper response leans down to bite at his ear. Alistair makes a sound halfway between a sob and a sigh and comes, and Tabris follows him over for the second time in the night before falling over him, sated and boneless.

Alistair wraps his arms around her as they both come down. Tabris can hear his heart in the quiet, thumping gently, slowing with the passing seconds and thinks, not for the first time since it happened, that she couldn’t regret making Alistair a Warden if she tried. This — his heart beating, his hands rubbing slow circles into her back — it makes everything worth it. The rest of Thedas could go to the Void if it means keeping him.  _ I kept him safe,  _ she thinks, breathing in the smell of him. She allows herself the realization that he isn’t the only person she’s saved. 

“Um.” Alistair’s voice brings her back to the moment, and she realizes suddenly that Alistair is already hard again. She resists the urge to laugh, because this is something she  _ completely _ forgot to tell him about. “Tabris,” he says, sounding both curious and a little concerned, “is this, um. Is this normal?”

Now she really does laugh, and pecks him quickly at the corner of his eye. “Stamina,” she says, grinning. “One of the few benefits of this whole thing.” 

This time when she starts to move slowly down, Alistair doesn’t stop her.

 

vi.

Predictably, things go south at the Landsmeet very quickly. Given Tabris’s luck, and given how absolutely fucking insufferable Ferelden’s nobility is (must be a holdover from the days of Orlesian occupation), it’s hardly a surprise. 

“This man,” Loghain says, pointing to Alistair, “quit the field at Ostagar and left good men to die. He hedged his bets with the Wardens, an organization only recently allowed again in Ferelden after being exiled for more treachery.

“Moreover these Wardens have been implicated in the invasion of Kinloch Hold in 9:10 by Orlais. This man is a traitor, a coward and a bastard. Unfit for rule, in fewer words.” There is a portion of the Landsmeet that agrees with him; Tabris can hear, in the other camp, murmurs of doubt. 

Before she can refute any of this, Alistair says, “No I’m not! Well, those last two things are true. But Loghain is the one who called back his troops and left me to die! I would have, too, had I not been rescued. I wasn’t conscious when Loghain called the retreat; I couldn’t have fled anything. I may not be fit to rule, but no more is a man willing to betray his king, poison his political opponents, and sell his own people to Tevinter.” When Alistair finishes his speech, the crowd begins to debate amongst itself, until Anora silences them. 

“My father is a good man, but misguided.” Tabris opens her mouth to protest, but is stopped by a look from Anora. “Please, let me speak, Warden.” Tabris throws her arms up, but says nothing. Anyway she seems to be on their side, as she’d claimed to be earlier in the week.

“He has seen much — he has lived through the occupation and liberation of our country. As I say: He is misguided, his views colored by his past experiences. I say we must move forward, but he remains trapped in the past.”

Anora circles around the group, her chin tilted up, the picture of grace and diplomacy. Tabris is admittedly in awe, just a bit — she hasn’t the experience with public speaking that Anora possesses, nor does she she have the same affect of nobility. “I must agree that he cannot remain king,” Anora says, seeming to be wrapping up her speech, “but I do not think restoring Alistair’s position is the answer. I ask that you consider my claim to the throne: I may never have married Cailan, but I have the experience that Alistair lacks. If you think Cailan ruled alone, you’d be mistaken.” 

Looking to Alistair, Tabris mouths,  _ Can she do that? _ Alistair shrugs.

One thing leads to another and before Tabris can so much as try to remember what her plan was this morning, Loghain is kneeling on the ground at swordpoint, Alistair standing stiffly above him and focusing on him with the intensity he lends to anything he puts his mind to.

When it falls to her to decide Loghain’s fate, she doesn’t meet Anora’s eyes. Tabris is strong, always has been, and has proven it time and again, but this — there are some things even she won’t do. She hears but does not see the queen fall over her father, failing to choke back a sob, nor does she watch as Loghain presses her daughter’s hand to his face, murmuring reassurances. Things have to go a certain way, Tabris tells herself. This is the right one.

When the shock has died down and the crowd gone quiet, Eamon speaks: “So, then,” he says, and lets his voice carry through the chamber. “People of Ferelden, you have your king once again.”

Tabris can feel Alistair’s panicked gaze on her and without thinking, she steps swiftly in front of him with her arm raised protectively and her eyes flashing with anger on Alistair’s behalf.

“Absolutely not,” she says sharply. The crowd’s voice rises in a crescendo of questions; the Warden hadn’t spoken since she’d given her case against Loghain (of course, being constantly interrupted didn’t help). Her voice feels strange coming from her body, and she feels herself retreating inwards the way she does whenever there are more than five sets of eyes on her. She thinks to herself,  _ Here goes _ , and imagines that she’s every bit as noble and eloquent as Anora.

“Um. That’s to say…” She tries to pull her face into a mask of certainty, though frankly she’d rather be pulled beneath the ground this very minute, and thinks on her feet. That, at least, is familiar terrain. “As the senior Warden in Ferelden, and therefore as acting commander of the grey, I here - I hereby conscript Alistair Theirin into the Wardens.” She takes a moment to bask in Eamon’s scandalized expression before she continues. “As a Warden, Alistair forfeits all claims to the throne in the name of his new sacred duty. He is no king, nor will he ever be. As such, the only viable solution here is to coronate Anora Mac Tir.” 

“You  _ cannot. _ ”

“I can, I’m afraid. The late King Maric reinstated our power, as I’m sure you know. And with our numbers once again so diminished — thank you again, Loghain — and with a Blight upon our doorstep,  _ well. _ ” She smiles, slow and catlike. “I find I have no choice but to invoke the right of conscription. Ser Alistair has already undergone the Joining, after all, so who better than him to join our ranks?”

“Two Wardens is better than one, I always say,” Alistair jokes, his smile timid, his gaze rather resembling that of a deer suddenly finding itself at the point of a crossbow. Tabris knows the attention must be getting to him, and knows she’s doing the right thing. How he managed as king for as long as he had is frankly mystifying. “Or just said now. We can make it a thing, though, right? Er, anyway. 

“As she said, I forfeit all claim to the throne, and forfeit any claims my heirs may have. It’s all yours, Anora,” he adds, indicating the throne with his hand. 

“Thank you, Alistair,” Anora says distastefully. Still, she seems as pleased with the outcome as anyone could be given the implications for her father.

When the crowd begins to disperse, Tabris takes Alistair by the hand and drags him back out into the open air so that they both can breathe again.

 

vii.

“You might die.” Morrigan is looking at her soberly, holding Tabris’s calloused hand in her own. “I implore you to think this through, Warden.”

Tabris laughs, but the sound rings hollow in her ears. If she never has to see Redcliffe castle again, she thinks, she’ll count herself a lucky woman: She’s received too much bad news here to ever look at it fondly again. In the silence, she examines Morrigan, gazes into her eerily golden eyes that seem to crackle in sync with the firelight. Odd, she thinks, that she’s become so close with this woman. But they both grew up cynical, didn’t they, isolated from the world at large? She feels guilty, somehow, knowing Morrigan counts her as her greatest friend. She feels unworthy, as though she’ll inevitably disappoint. Like she seems to be doing now.

“So then,” Tabris breathes, the immensity of her situation leaning heavy on her chest, “I either die now or I die at Denerim. I don’t see the difference. If there’s a chance that me and him can — that we can  _ live _ , Morrigan, I have to take it. Risks be damned.”

“A great risk you’ll be taking for that oaf,” Morrigan comments, but Tabris has come to understand that any malice she still bears towards Alistair is out of concern for Tabris herself. It’s touching, in a way.

Tabris looks somewhere above Morrigan’s head, and is surprised by how much more certain of herself her voice comes out when she tells her, “Nobody is ever dying for me again.” 

She can feel Morrigan’s eyes on her, soft, considering.

“As you like,” she says at last. “I found it in mother’s grimoire as we were leaving the Dalish. ‘Tis… a ritual, of sorts. How she came to it I do not want to speculate. But this is all there is: On the eve of the archdemon’s death, one tainted by its blood must bleed by silverite. It cannot be Riordan, for the blood is too old in him. Nor can it be Alistair; it would surely kill him.

“Which leaves you. If one consumes the blood of a Warden, a child comes of it.”

“A child?” Tabris recoils. “How does that help us?”

“Think of it as a lightning rod, of sorts. Urthemiel needs a vessel for its soul when its mortal body is slain. Ordinarily, that would be you — the next closest, most powerful living thing that vaguely resembles a darkspawn.” Morrigan makes some gestures with her hands that are probably supposed to demonstrate the transference of Urthemiel’s soul, but it doesn’t really help Tabris at all.

“However, if part of you is somewhere  _ else _ , in the form of a child not yet living, its soul will be drawn there instead.”

“And the child…?”

“Will live,” Morrigan finishes quickly, though that doesn’t reassure Tabris much. “With only the purest aspect of Urthemiel’s soul. The archdemon falls, neither of you dies…”

“And you have an Old God’s soul.”

Morrigan smiles at her. “Well. I never claimed that my motives were purely altruistic. What do you say, Warden?”

Doubt wrestles with Tabris’s implicit trust in Morrigan. It doesn’t take long for the latter to win out.

“Alright,” she says, “hand me the blade.”

 

viii.

Tabris feels something ugly and selfish rise in her throat like bile as Riordan falls from Fort Drakon.

Okay, it  _ is _ bile.

She composes herself. As much as she can in this atmosphere, at least, covered in darkspawn blood and unable to hear anything outside the clashing of weaponry, the frantic crowds, the din of battle. She feels like she did at the Landsmeet all over again: It’s a little like those dreams where you’re walking down a staircase and suddenly the bottom step disappears, and you find yourself stumbling downwards without any end in sight.

_ Just this last thing _ , Tabris thinks, as though this is just the final item on her checklist for just another day.  _ Just save the world and you’re free _ .

Zevran and Wynne have moved ahead of Tabris and Alistair. Tabris watches and something pulls tightly in her chest. Worry, mostly, but also a sort of fondness inappropriate for this particular moment in time. Tabris thinks —  _ knows _ — that she loves this band of outcasts to whom she somehow became leader of sorts. And she loves —

“Alistair.”

He looks at her, gaze intense, but says nothing. Which suits her, because it means there aren’t any words needed for her to pull him into an urgent kiss that quickly is interrupted by Tabris’s tears. 

“Listen,” she says, though the way he’s looking at her tells her she doesn’t need to ask for him to listen. “Alistair. I never said it but we could die at any moment, so — I love you, okay? I know you know, just, I had to say it. Just to make sure. Fuck, I didn’t mean to cry, this is just fuckin’ perfe —”

“Tabris.” Alistair is staring down at her, looking amused but also on the verge of tears himself. “It’s alright,” he laughs wetly. “I love you.”

“Me an’ you, right? Till the end?” And ordinarily she’d chide herself for being so cheesy, but she needs this to ground her, or else she doesn’t know where her head will go.

He pulls her into his arms and whispers something into her hair that she does not hear. A prayer, perhaps? But then he says, “Always.” Then there is blood, and blood, and blood.

 

ix.

She had expected, in the months leading up to this moment, to feel some sort of triumph as she watched Urthemiel fall. Instead Tabris just feels painfully hollow. Tired, too, like she could stand to sleep for a good few years (and she just might, at that).

As she’s led off the rooftop she finds herself only able to wonder what it must have felt like for Urthemiel to die. She was supposed to have known. Her armor is dark with its blood, but all she can think of is how hollow it must have felt to die alone, ultimately. She wonders and thinks,  _ What now? _

(In the years to come the story changes; she stands upon the corpse of a god and laughs, or slices its head clean off with a sword that flames as bright as anything. The flaming sword part is true, at least, but that has more to do with enchantment than with any heroic qualities the bards impart upon this strange construct of a hero that Tabris scarcely recognizes. It makes for an entertaining evening, to be sure, but Tabris always feels strange when the tavern has emptied out and all is quiet.)

 

x.

(Or, an epilogue of sorts.)

The dust settles.

It takes a while, of course. These things always do.

There’s the matter of rebuilding Denerim, which has been left to Anora. Tabris almost feels badly about it, but she also knows that the new queen is more than capable of recovering the country to which she’s properly given her heart. The people like her well enough, which is to be expected. Even if Anora weren’t a politician years in the making, she’s genuinely likable. She thinks, perhaps, had circumstances been different, they might have been friends. But, circumstances being what they are, the two are at least amicable. The topic of Loghain is always to be avoided.

It falls to Tabris, though, to restore Amaranthine to its proper standing — that is to say, the way it was before Howe turned on more people than Tabris thought possible (the memory is a scar on Highever, but the Cousland children seem to be recovering as well. Tabris met one shortly after the Battle of Denerim — the sister, tall and proud as anything but with a gentle smile that could set a storm at ease. She reminds Tabris of a rose). Vigil’s Keep is its own project altogether; Tabris throws her heart into it and pretends not to notice the way Amaranthine hesitates to accept her as Arlessa. She was Warden-Commander first, after all.

Morrigan is nowhere to be seen, as promised. There are rumors, whispers of her from time to time. A cold, mysterious woman wandering the darkest parts of Thedas, a child in her arms, a cloak shielding them both. Tabris had made a promise to herself, to search for her one day. But there are things to do, always things to do, and she knows that the witch won’t be found if she doesn’t wish it.

(Tabris wonders, sometimes, if she  _ does _ wish it. If the crow alighting on a signpost isn’t trying to tell her something; if a mirror lying on a dirt road might not perhaps belong to an old friend. But it isn’t for her to say. In these moments Alistair shakes her shoulder and asks why she cares so much for someone so cruel, but Tabris knows the way he misses her, too.)

Leliana left for Orlais shortly after Anora’s coronation. Tabris receives letters from time to time, always scented with a familiar perfume. She writes of the court, of the Game and of the strange things Orlais’ nobility does; but also of her frustrations with the country’s hypocrisy, and with the Chantry’s uselessness. Everyone had quite forgotten that Leliana was once a Chantry sister; she’d slipped so easily back into her role as a bard in the days of the Blight. Now it seems she’s angling to be both, which Tabris can’t really imagine is possible in Ferelden where things at least have the decency to  _ pretend _ to be straightforward. Tabris found out from somebody else that Marjolaine recently passed away of uncertain circumstances. She doesn’t mourn her death, but at times she does mourn the cheerful, earnest young woman who fought by her side out of a conviction that she’d been chosen for a higher purpose.

Zevran, ever faithful, keeps his word to stand by Tabris as she rebuilds Vigil’s Keep and attempts to endear herself to cold, wary Amaranthine. She’d asked him, only once, if he’d ever become a Warden, but even as she’d asked she knew she couldn’t let him join them. He was built for more, it always seemed to her, and so she hasn’t tried again since. His presence at her side is a comforting one, and when Nathaniel Howe comes for the Wardens Zevran is there to laugh with her at her knack for befriending her would-be killers. He quickly befriends a new Warden — an intelligent, if somewhat aloof, young woman who’d apparently escaped Kinloch during the coup and managed to evade the Templars till now. Tabris is good at sensing endings, and is not surprised when she finds him packing his things quietly one evening before bed. She knows there’s unfinished business with the Crows, and does not begrudge him his leaving. He writes, too, from time to time.

Eventually Alistair returns from his own duties. The darkspawn won’t return underground, not entirely, and it had fallen to him to kill those who stayed above the surface. He arrives at Vigil’s Keep just as things are starting to get stranger; it’s a talent of his, bad timing. Not that Tabris will complain — she welcomes the help he offers, as well as the shoulder to lean on. And someone to warm the bed at night. 

Nights are good. Nights are when they stop being heroes of the Blight, when they are again just a bastard from the countryside and a petty thief from Denerim, the way it should be. Tabris lets the armor fall; Alistair removes it gently, so gently, trailing kisses where his hands have been. There’s a certainty he’s gained over the months — a determination to take care of her, anticipate her needs where from anyone else she’d hide them, until she’s soft, pliant, the tension eased from her shoulders. 

The day begins anew. The cycle repeats.

Alistair doesn’t talk to Eamon. Tabris sees the letters the courier brings from time to time; she watches Alistair read them late at night, his shoulders stiff, his mouth a hard line (those nights Tabris kisses it till it's softer, his lips more pliant). A part of her wonders if she oughtn’t try to encourage him to write back, to mend things. But then she knew Eamon once, and knows it wouldn’t be a healing thing. Not for Alistair, and that’s all she cares about. 

No one ever talks about what comes  _ after _ saving the world. To be fair, that’s probably in part because everyone else who ever has died doing it. Peace would be reward enough, Tabris thinks, but with the strange activity in the wilds beyond Amaranthine they don’t even have that. Still, she knows better than to fear. There’s been worst in her past, and whatever comes next she’ll handle it till it’s behind her, too. By now she’s used to living that way, from disaster to disaster.

And anyway, she won’t be alone. That is enough, Tabris thinks when Alistair curls around her in bed; when she catches his eye during training routines with clumsy new recruits; when she wakes from a bad nightmare and he’s already awake. It’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so! first of all: an apology for how damn LONG it's taken for me to get this out. the long explanation is that things get kinda floaty for me during the summer, or all the time, really, and things get jumbled and it's nigh impossible for me to just sit down and put words on paper. or keyboard, as the case may be.   
> the short explanation is that i have really, really bad ADD.  
> i also didn't mean for this chapter to be so long, but there comes a point at which you just gotta say "fuck it" and finish the damn fic.  
> something important to note:  
> i altered the dark ritual here. i'll be honest, i absolutely fucking despise how it's handled in-game. it makes me extremely uncomfortable. so: i changed it.   
> anyway i do want to thank those of you who've stuck with me through all this lmao.. shoutout especially to tumblr user ariatlaok for reading this over five billion times. this is a longer thing than i've possibly ever written like, ever, in my life, which is kind of weird and not entirely a happy feeling but, hey, at least im writing something. it's been a very.. interesting journey. aaaand here we are.


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